Category: Family

An early rise – 22 September 2022

Posted on by Zogman

Up and out fairly early today to take the car to the garage for its service.

I thought it was going to be a nightmare run to Stirling. The rain was torrential when I woke, but by the time I was leaving it was tailing off and so was the traffic which usually turns the M80 into a carpark if you are travelling before 10am. A nice easy run to the garage.

Spoke to a lady assistant who asked if I’d had any problems with the car since the last service and when I handed her the typed up A4 sheet, she said “Oh! I see”, read it and promptly passed it on the service manager. Actually they couldn’t have been more helpful today. They seem to be under new management, so that might explain it. I signed all the paperwork, drew in a sharp intake of breath when the service assistant told me the cost of the Major Service and we walked out to my car for the day. It was a white Nissan Juke – automatic. His parting words to me were “Just remember not to lift your left foot.” Wise words. At the first roundabout I stamped on the brake, thinking it was the clutch. “Don’t lift your left foot” became my mantra for the drive home. My first thoughts were It’s BIG, It’s a bit noisier than the Micra and It’s got Sport Mode!!

After a bit of a kerfuffle I managed to reverse park The Beast and like all Nissans it complained about everything with warnings on the dashboard screen and beeps for every infringement.

I thought it would be good to go for a drive with Scamp. I knew she’d hate it. It’s too big and it goes too fast. I have to agree, but first I had to find how to put fuel into it. I could not find the switch to open the door that hides the fuel cap. The Micra has two tabs, one opens the bonnet and the other opens the fuel compartment. Eventually I gave in and read the instructions. To open the door, you press on the rear of the fuel compartment door, just like the Megane. Problem solved.

We drove out slowly and put in a few quids worth of petrol, then went for a run to The Kelpies. Just to annoy Scamp, I put on the heated seats when she wasn’t looking. That gave her a shock and a laugh (you taught me that, Jamie). I still don’t like them and Scamp hates them. I managed to drive all the way to Falkirk and only once did an ‘emergency stop’ by trying to use a clutch that wasn’t there. I also gave Scamp a laugh when I started trying to change gear in an automatic. My hand went to the gearstick quite a few times. When we parked at The Kelpies, I tried to pull on an invisible handbrake – the joys of ‘electronic handbrakes’.

The Kelpies were just as magical as they always are. We walked round them trying to see them from a different angle and being amazed at how lifelike they are. It was quite quiet today, no crowds. Well, it was quiet until a lorry load of visitors arrived and mobbed the place. There seemed to be hundreds of them. We went into the cafe and had lunch before they realised there was food nearby. Today’s PoD came from Helix Park, where The Kelpies live. It was a snap shot, not a snapshot. Saw it and took it before I realised that the bloke was with the woman in the background, wearing the yellow jacket and she was photographing him. Oops!

After we’d seen the great metal horses and walked round them, we headed home. Scamp bought birthday cards in Condorrat while I processed today’s photos. After that, we wrote the cards and I walked to Condorrat to post one. Hopefully the other will go to June for safe keeping tomorrow.

Oh yes, tomorrow. I got a phone call from the garage about 5pm to say Would it be ok to leave the Micra with them overnight until they finalise their investigations? I agreed that it would be fine by me. They confirmed that they would extend my insurance. So I get another day to find our more about the White Juke.

Tomorrow June and Iain are taking us out for lunch at the Red Deer (AKA the Dead Deer). Looking forward to it. Also looking forward to getting my Blue Micra back.

Just a lazy Sunday – 18 September 2022

Posted on by Zogman

Didn’t even manage to get my Eight Active Hours or my 10,000 steps.

A lazy morning, completing our Wordle puzzles (I got 3 today, Scamp got a little more). Then we struggled to make the greatest number of words from the seven letters you’re allowed in Spelling Bee. Scamp beat me. These little puzzles have become a daily challenge and a matter of some competition.

I went for a walk in the afternoon after lunch. The sun didn’t come out to see me, though. It kept attempting to break through the clouds and I could see sunbeams over to the west, but they never came near us. It didn’t stop me taking photos. PoD went to a little yellow spider dangling on its web.

While I was out, Scamp was splitting up plants and repotting them, taking cuttings of others and pruning. She is so good at propagation. I’d guess that most, if not all of those cuttings ‘take’ by next year. Before I went out, I got the smelly job of turning over the compost in the bin. It’s now a lot less smelly, but I was for a while.

Dinner tonight was Just Soup then Trout Fillets with cabbage and potatoes. Apple and Rhubarb Crumble (our rhubarb and our apples) to end a Sunday dinner.

Spoke to Jamie later and got a fair bit of information about phones. Yes, the phone may be on the back burner, but it’s still there. Thanks for that Jamie. I did have a look on the Samsung website tonight.

There are no plans for tomorrow as yet.

Runnin’ – 11 September 2022

Posted on by Zogman

Keeping up the theme of the last couple of days with the trailing apostrophe.

We weren’t actually doing any running ourselves, but today was the Cumbersheugh 10K and we were going to Broadwood Stadium to cheer on the runners.

It was a beautiful sunny morning and I didn’t mind foregoing my morning coffee for a walk down to Broadwood. We didn’t know when the 10K would start, but there were a lot of fit looking folk there already in a multitude of colours of lycra and all wearing running shoes that probably cost as much as one of my cameras. For the first time in my life I got to walk on the hallowed turf (well, astroturf actually ) of Broadwood Football Park. It was mobbed. We thought it was busy outside the stadium, but it was double or triple that inside, nearly all weans. But where there is a wean, there are usually at least two adults. Parents, Grannies, Granpas, Uncles etc. All cheering the weans on in the races. There were a variety of running styles being demonstrated, but thankfully none of under-teenagers was wearing tracksuits or lycra, that was reserved for the parents, grannies etc.

We watched the weans running races and getting their medals, but then there was almost an hour’s wait for the main event, the 10K. Thankfully, Scamp had brought a zip lock bag for us to fill with ripe brambles. The rain and the warm weather had meant that most of the brambles were just a bit too soft, but we managed to find enough to add to some of our apples to make a decent apple and bramble pie. Then we went for a walk round the exercise machines. We spoke to a woman who commended us on ‘foraging’, rather than just buying brambles in M&S. We agreed and finished our walk in time to find a good place for me to photograph the 10K.  The first man out the blocks was PoD.

What you never get to experience when you watch a group of runners on the TV is the breeze they create as they pass. I remember, years ago waiting for the peloton to pass in Ireland when the Tour de France started from there and being taken aback by the wind they generated as the body of riders displaced the air they were travelling through. It was the same today, although in a slightly smaller scale.

Once the pack had passed and the walkers tagged on behind, we walked over the dam and sat on a seat to watch for them returning, but they never did. Instead they came back by a totally different route. We couldn’t be bothered waiting and lunch was calling, so we walked back home. The closer we got to home, the heavier the clouds were looking. Scamp had washing hanging out, so we were on guard.

After lunch, Scamp made the Apple and Bramble Pie and just as she was finishing, she called through to me to take the washing in, because the rain was starting. It was a good call, because it wasn’t a passing shower, it just got heavier. The washing was safely gathered in by then and dessert was ready for the oven, as was the Fish Pie from M&S.

That fish pie was delicious, although I’m blaming it for a bit of heartburn tonight. The pie was also excellent with just enough sharpness and sugar in the apples and the lovely bramble juice too.

Spoke to Jamie later and heard about the visit from Yves and Simonne’s cousin.  We heard about Tennents Super Lager and the lack of serviettes.

On the phone question, I’ve decided to put it on the back burner for now.  Not literally, although sometimes I think that might be a possible solution.  It’s working.  It does what I need.  It’s sometimes cantakerous and does things its way, but then, so am I. It may not stay on that virtual back burner for long, but it’s there for now.

Tomorrow we have no plans.   We need a few days without plans.

 

Dancin’ – 10 September 2022

Posted on by Zogman

We drove over to Brookfield in beautiful sunshine.

We arrived early, mainly because there were no football matches on today as a mark of respect for the death of the queen, so the road was fairly clear.

First today was a reprise and a cleaning up of the Charnwood Cha-Cha, which we managed fairly well. Next was a new Foxtrot routine. We only did about half of it, but it was looking quite good. A lot more technical than the older foxtrot we learned earlier in the year. After that, things started to go downhill rapidly for me. Stewart announced that we were going to learn a new sequence dance called there Balmoral Blues, and nodded to us, because we’d attempted it on Thursday by watching what others were doing and following them. Today was different. Today we were learning the proper version and it seemed to have many more steps than Thursday’s version. Jane said she hated this dance and by the end of the lesson I fully agreed with her. None of the figures seemed to gel with each other. It just looked like a hodge-podge of moves. Lastly was the waltz we’d been learning. I think my brain had shut down after the Bloody Balmoral Blues. I’d had enough. I just couldn’t figure out where we were and what came next. I apologised to Scamp and sat out the last five or ten minutes and watched other suffer.

We drove home by our alternative route through the Clyde Tunnel which cuts out the dastardly Kingston Bridge. It worked its magic again and we only had about five minutes of queueing on the other side.

Back home, Scamp went out to get chicken for tonight’s dinner and told me to get up and go out for a walk in the sunshine to brighten my mood. I took her at her word, but it wasn’t until she came back that I was kitted out to go for a walk in St Mo’s. Lots of butterflies, Peacocks, Red Admirals and maybe a Tortoiseshell. Lots of bees and hoverflies on the Scabious flowers too. PoD is a Common Carder Bee. Ended my walk by going down to M&S and sourcing a fish pie for tomorrow’s dinner.

I’m still searching for my next phone. I did think about an iPhone 13, but after some good advice from Hazy, I may review the Samsung again. Now it’s your turn Jamie and Simonne. I’m looking at either an iPhone 13 or a Samsung S22+ with 128GB. Hoping it will give me a decent camera and enough storage space for my needs. Do you pair have any suggestions?

Tomorrow is the Cumbernauld 10K.  We may go and cheer the runners on if it’s not raining and if we’re up in time.  We will not be running!

A late rise – 3 September 2022

Posted on by Zogman

We must both have had a hard day yesterday. My excuse was that I’d been out cycling and Scamp’s was that she and the witches had been talking almost constantly for all of yesterday afternoon.

Once we’d dragged ourselves out of bed, dressed and completed today’s Wordle successfully, we discussed where to go and what to do with a very dull day. We settled on a run to Torwood, looking for something to buy for someone who has a birthday coming up soon. Unfortunately Torwood Garden Centre was having a bit of an Autumn Clean, which is really just a Spring Clean six months later. Lots of the garden furniture that usually lives outside was now inside and none of the usual stuff that Scamp expected to see had been put into storage, it seemed. For what must be the first time in our Torwood history, we left empty handed.

I suggested we try Calder’s in Cumbersheugh as an alternative, but although they had lots of things that “might do”, they didn’t have the exact article she was looking for. We were just about to leave when the heavens opened and the threatened heavy rain made us think again about walking out just then. Once the rain had eased, we ran to the car and drove home.

Later in the afternoon the sky cleared and although the sun didn’t shine, it was bright enough to take a camera for a walk in St Mo’s. The PoD went to a photo of a hoverfly on a Scabious flower, a wild scabious. While I was out, Scamp was talking to Jackie in Skye. She and Murdo are just recovering from the dreaded Covid and they both seemed to have it bad, but feeling better now.

On our walk earlier in the week, Alex and I had been discussing processing old photos taken years ago and tonight I worked on a photo of Castle Stalker in Appin from 2005. Taken with my old D70 it scrubbed up well as you can see here.

Tomorrow we may go looking for that birthday present again or we may leave that for a weekday when there will hopefully be fewer crowds

White Rabbits (x3) – 1 September 2022

Posted on by Zogman

Scamp was feeling a bit dizzy this morning, so instead of taking Shona out for coffee, she came to us instead, for tea.

It was really a ladies morning with the two of them going over Shona and Ben’s recent visit to her cousins in London and Warrington. There was so much talk going on that there was no time to show her our holiday snaps. Just before we left to take her shopping, a parcel arrived for me! It was a surprise packet of tea from Jamie. Not your ordinary tea either, this was Pan Galactic Gargle Blaster tea. It’s peppermint and blackcurrant flavoured in a black tea base with ‘sparkles’ that glitter when it’s brewing. It actually tastes quite good. Maybe not quite as good as the bright blue “Intergallactic Space Juice” that came as a concentrate and was added to Sodastream bottles, back in the late ‘70s and early ’80s. Thanks for that, Jamie. It certainly brightened my day.

Pan Galactic Gargle Blaster was of course a cocktail created by Zaphod Beeblebrox in The Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy.

We dropped Shona off at the Town Centre and headed back to Tesco for some messages. After lunch I took the camera out for a walk in St Mo’s, but found very little to inspire me. However, back home Scamp had managed to get a photo of a Peacock butterfly on one of our multicoloured buddleia bush. This is probably the first butterfly to visit these “Butterfly bushes” and is certainly the first this year. I think she was quite pleased to beat me to the photo. I managed to get a few shots of it when it returned to the bush, but none are as good as Scamp’s. She must have a really good camera!

It was Mince ’n’ Tatties for my dinner and Bubble ’n’ Squeak for Scamp’s. Both good old fashioned plates of food. I managed to keep a few spoonfuls of the M&T to have for my lunch tomorrow.

PoD was a ball of thistledown waiting for the wind to distribute it to the four corners of St Mo’s. I liked the way it seemed to be bubbling out of the flower head.

Scamp has an appointment at the health centre tomorrow morning to let one of the nurses have a look at her ears and hopefully see if that’s what’s causing the dizziness although it seems to have settled down as the day progressed. After that she’s off to a Witches meeting at Moira’s. I’m thinking about getting the Dewdrop back on the road and going hunting brambles, if the weather holds.

A day at the horses – 31 August 2022

Posted on by Zogman

Aha, but not just any horses. These ones are only half buried. That leaves it up to the imagination to see their hidden bodies!

In the morning after a cup of strong coffee, I drove over to Motherwell to pick up my brother and then we drove east to Helix Park in Falkirk. Alex was going to be introduced to the magic of the Kelpies and they didn’t disappoint. From the motorway you don’t get the full effect of these sculptures, but up close and with the feeling that, like dragonflies, you are being observed just as carefully as you are observing them. I lost count of the number of times we walked round them, looking at them from all angles and taking photos of them with a variety of cameras and lenses. I wondered how many hundreds of folk took selfies with them today. I wondered how many thousands of folk had their photo taken today, holding out their hand as if they were feeding these giant beasts. They are simply amazing.

After a while we paused for lunch and disappointingly, the sun went behind the clouds for a while and it looked like the best light of the day was gone, so we went for a walk over the canal and along the towpath on the far side, then back over another bridge further on. As we were taking some longer views of the beasts, we realised that the sun had just been having its lunch too and was now back to full strength again having pushed its way through the clouds. We went back for another shoot. This time from a different angle. We tried reflections in the water and reflections in the panoramic windows of the visitors centre. I walked back to the car to dump my raincoat which I wasn’t going to need now and found yet another viewpoint I’d not seen before.

Another coffee and it was time for the last of the photos and then it really was time to say goodbye to the Kelpies, but we did say too, that we’d be back. For now, though it was back to rush hour and the inevitable queues on the motorway. I drove Alex back to Motherwell and then came home, exhausted. I hadn’t quite realised how hot it was today. It was a long day and a lot of driving, but I really enjoyed it and I’m sure Alex did too. A monochrome ultra-wide shot of the Kelpies got PoD.

Tomorrow I may go out to lunch with Scamp and Shona or more likely I’ll just relax and read. I’ll maybe do some reorganising of August’s photos.

Coffee with Isobel and a question answered – 30 August 2022

Posted on by Zogman

We were out this morning for coffee with Isobel at Costa, so almost coffee.

As usual Isobel was an entertainment. Full of stories of a visit to see the wreck of the Sugar Boat on an afternoon cruise from Greenock. The ship, the MV Captayannis was loaded with raw east African sugar for the Tate & Lyle refinery in Greenock. It was deliberately run aground to prevent it sinking after a collision with another ship during a storm in the Clyde in 1974. Apparently the remains of the ship can still be seen from the esplanade at Helensburgh, but Isobel’s trip started across the Clyde estuary in Greenock. I must admit, this is the first I’ve heard of the Sugar Boat and its story. We must go and have a look for it the next time we’re in Helensburgh. It’s actually visible on Google Maps about halfway between Helensburgh and Greenock.

Scamp was showing Isobel some of our holiday photos and then chanced upon a picture on her phone of a mystery flower that’s growing well in our garden. She showed it to Isobel who immediately recognised it as a Japanese Anemone, and to be honest, it does look like a very large anemone. We’ve been puzzling over that flower for well over a month now, but now Isobel has solved the problem.

We came home via the village to drop Isobel off at her house and then via Tesco to get some messages. Dinner tonight was to be Paella and we needed chicken thighs for that. Of course we bough a lot more besides the chicken. Back home and after lunch I struggled with today’s Wordle and was getting nowhere with it, so I did what I usually do and put it aside and went for a walk in St Mo’s. Not a lot of activity today, but I did get an animated looking group of dandelion seeds. They look as if they’re dancing in the breeze, but actually they’re caught in a spider web. I took a few insect photos too, but nothing spectacular, so the dandelion seeds got PoD.

Paella was ok, but the chicken thighs were a bit cheugh (chewy). Maybe my cooking or maybe not Tesco’s finest. Whatever, it filled a wee space.

We watched a fairly interesting program on the history of University Challenge which is 60 years old this year. I didn’t realise it had been going for such a long time. It was only fairly interesting because there was really far too much padding in it. A 30 minute program made to fit a 60 minute time slot.

I’ve talked Alex into going to the Kelpies tomorrow, rather than Glasgow again. If time permits, we might even get a half hour in Culross.

Just a lazy Sunday – 28 August 2022

Posted on by Zogman

I’d thought we might drive down to Auchinstarry for a walk along the canal, but Scamp had other ideas.

After lunch, Scamp was looking longingly at the front grass and I could see her arguing with herself that it was a warm, dry day and the grass really did need cutting. I, on the other hand was going to make a Tagine with a couple of pieces of lamb neck I had taken out of the freezer last night. Decision made. Scamp would cut the front grass and I would make my tagine. There was no point in me doing the grass cutting, Scamp would only go and redo it … properly. Since I’m the meat-eater of the family, she was happy for me to cook my dinner.

That’s how it turned out. I let the slow cooker do the hard work of making the tagine after I’d filled it with chopped onions, fried lamb chunks, lots of different spices, chopped dates, chopped apricots and some orange juice. I took the slow cooker up to the back bedroom to bubble away to its heart’s content. That’s the great thing about slow cookers, you can dump them anywhere there’s a power socket. They don’t need to be taking up real estate on the kitchen worktop. Scamp was still grass cutting and trimming and blowing the cuttings away with the blower, so I wrote an email to Alex with some photos.

Speaking of photos, today’s PoD is a yellow rose that’s just “going over” to use the technical term for losing all its petals. Not my best work, but I couldn’t be bothered going anywhere today. Too much driving in the past few days and no real wish to go for yet another walk in St Mo’s.

A thin gin and tonic after we were both done made the slide from afternoon to early evening quite pleasant. Dinner was OK. Just OK. In retrospect, I’d have preferred potatoes or even rice with the tagine, but I’d opted for couscous. It was too dry and it didn’t really go with Scamp’s Ratatouille. I must make a note on my recipe not to use couscous. I’ve never really liked it anyway!

Watched an amazing drive by Verstappen coming from 14th on the grid (after losing his pole position because he’d used too many engine components) to win the Belgian GP. I almost felt sorry for Leclerc only able to achieve a 6th place after some startlingly poor tactical decisions by Ferrari. It would appear that the team have a death wish at present.

Spoke to Jamie later and heard about his troubles with squirrels or mice eating his big tomatoes, but leaving the small ones alone. It being a bank holiday tomorrow in England, he has an extra long weekend.

No plans as yet for tomorrow. We’ll take it as it comes.

Struggling with Wordle© – 2 August 2022

Posted on by Zogman

I suppose that’s what Jamie would call a ‘Middle Class Problem’.

Before we started the day proper, we both did a Lateral Flow test and photographed the result ( Negative ). It must be one of the few times when a ‘negative’ is positive result! We didn’t need to do it, but we’d both agreed we’d do one within the two day time frame. Now it’s done and recorded, we feel better. When that was done the rest of the day could begin.

Hazy phoned and we discussed holidays and meds and the latest Becky Chambers book I’d just finished this morning. I even encouraged Scamp to read the last four pages of the book where the author was discussing gardening in an arid planet under transparent domes. The concept may have been alien, but the process was very familiar to Scamp. Like us, Hazy and Neil had watched the first part of The Control Centre and decided it wasn’t for them. What she did next was interesting. She didn’t want to watch any more of this drama set in Glasgow, but she wanted to find out how it ended, and she did. But then, that’s what Hazy is good at, researching! We heard about how the rest of the family is getting on and how Canute and Delia are being forced to close up their clothing shop as are the rest of the tenants are on that street because the landlord had plans for the area. It’s a shame, but also it will take a lot of pressure of them both. Generally this morning was a really good catch-up.

I wanted to go in to Glasgow for some photo stuff today and Scamp came for the walk. Not anything essential, just like Sunday, a reason to get out of the house. Just like Sunday too, we drove in to Cowcaddens, parked there and walked up Sausage Roll Street which really is a shadow of its former self. All the weird traffic lanes and boarded up shop windows drag this once vibrant shopping street literally into the gutter. Crossed the road and found that WEX was indeed open today. I’d checked after we did the Covid test and it was as we’d suspected a lack of staff to open the shop on Sunday. Got what I was looking for and we walked back down the virtually dead Sauchiehall Street and had lunch in a Nero. Then it was back in the car and home via Tiso for some Smidge.

It had turned out to be a lovely warm day with blue skies and just the slightest threat of rain. The rain had been heavy all night last night as was testified to by the amount of water in the buckets in the garden. I took a camera for a walk in St Mo’s later in the afternoon, mainly to find a subject for the Flickr Friday competition ‘Fire’. My fire was a burned out bonfire some of the local idiots had made in the woods. Scary to think that folk would do that just for somewhere to sit and have a clandestine drink on a Friday night. Have a bonfire in a wood! That’s sensible, isn’t it?

We had a dance practise tonight. Nothing fancy, just two waltz routines. The ‘Baby Waltz’ sounds easy, and it is for Scamp, but for me it’s a bit of a minefield, especially trying to remember what an ‘outside change’ is!

I’m off now to write the second part of an epistle to Alex with photos.

Tomorrow I think I need to do some rearranging of my storage options, and get an early night.